Inside the Zeigarnik Effect: Why Unfinished Business Haunts Our Minds
Inside the Zeigarnik Effect: Why Unfinished Business Haunts Our Minds
Wondering why it is so hard just to let it go.
In my previous post, I discussed how to take control of your attention in this overwhelming time of constant information flow that is nudging our minds from every direction. We open social media while walking, colleagues keep messaging us through Slack while working, friends send us Whatsapp messages while working out in the gym, and a call comes in the middle of the night while we sleep.
The demand to live in modern times has never been more challenging as technology has been advancing for the last 20 years, making us more accessible than ever. We are reachable on the tip of our thumbs.
We forget how hard it used to reach out to people years ago.
For example, in the working environment with cubicles, you need to put in an effort if you want to ask your colleagues for lunch. First, you must come by walking to their desk, which requires 3-5 minutes, depending on the office space size. You must put in extra effort if they are on a different floor than yours. Then, you wait for the elevator to come, walk to their desk, and ask them if they want to come along. You are lucky if you can find them on their desks, but what if they are in a meeting? What if they didn't come to the office due to an urgent errand they needed to do? What if they went for lunch with their other colleagues?
You get the idea of how hard it was. Fast forward to the present; you can Slack them and get a response if they can join you in less than 30 seconds. How crazy is that?
Zeigarnik Effect
As we become more online and accessible almost 24/7, it gets harder to put your focus on the work you are doing. The interruption will happen sometimes randomly.
A study from the University of California, Irvine, concluded that after only 20 minutes of repeating interruptions, people reported significantly higher stress, frustration, workload, effort, and pressure.
There's an explanation for this. It is a psychological phenomenon that explains an unfinished task will linger in our mind until it's finished. When you start a task but don't finish it, your mind tends to keep it active and easily accessible until you complete it. Once a task is completed, it's no longer seen as important or urgent, so it tends to fade from memory more quickly.
This is called the Zeigarnik Effect, named after Bluma Zeigarnik, who discovered it in the early 20th century. The effect refers to the tendency of people to remember uncompleted or interrupted tasks better than completed tasks. It explains why we feel more stressed every time someone interrupts our work because we remember the interrupted tasks that are supposed to be completed in the next hour. It is why some people can only be done with their work once all their to-do lists are checked.
Zeigarnik effect creates an Open Cognitive Loop that refers to the unfinished mental processes or unresolved thoughts that occupy our attention until they're addressed.
The more unfinished tasks there are, the more it creates an Open Cognitive Loop, and the more it impacts overall cognitive performance and, eventually, results in feelings of stress and feeling overwhelmed. Too many Open Cognitive loops can be a disaster for our minds.
This psychological phenomenon reflects the brain's inclination to seek closure and resolution to our problem, and it has significant implications for motivation, memory, and task management in daily life.
Example in daily life
The Zeigarnik effect is ubiquitous in every part of our lives:
Procrastination: Remember the task that you've been procrastinating for so long? It tends to linger in your mind, creating a sense of unease or anxiety until you complete it.
To-Do Lists: We tend to remember the uncompleted tasks compared to completed ones. Many people find that making to-do lists is an effective way to manage tasks. The act of writing down tasks can help offload them from working memory, but the Zeigarnik effect ensures that unfinished tasks stay on your mind until you check them off. No wonder some people can only take their mind off work if they have completed the task for the day.
TV Shows and Cliffhangers: Television shows often use cliffhangers at the end of episodes to keep viewers engaged and eager to watch the next episode. The unresolved plotlines activate the Zeigarnik effect, making viewers more likely to tune in to discover what happens next time. This is why you can't stop binge-watching Succession, True Detective, Breaking Bad, and Westworld—our brain loves to seek closure and resolution.
Conversation Interruptions: Remember the last time you had a conversation with your best friend in a car, but then a call from their mom interrupted your discussion and found yourself eager to resume it? Unfinished conversations can linger in your mind until they are resolved, crawling back to you to pick up where you left off when you get the chance.
Unfinished Projects: The project that you told your friends you were going to run, a new habit you promised yourself to improve, or a personal goal that you set for 2024 are unfinished tasks that can create a nagging sense of incompleteness that motivates you to return to it and see it through.
Managing Zeigarnik Effect
Now we know how the Zeigarnik effect can impact our cognitive performance by creating infinite Open Cognitive Loops that remain open until they're completed, making us feel stressed, overwhelmed, exhausted, and anxious. Then, what are we going to do to manage this impulse so we can have a better relationship managing our well-being and our brain's inclination to seek closure and resolution:
Task Management
Prioritize your tasks: Focus on completing high-priority tasks first to reduce the mental burden of unfinished business.
Break tasks into smaller steps: Dividing tasks into smaller, manageable chunks can make them less overwhelming and easier to complete.
Remove Distractions
Distractions-free: Minimize any distractions that you've been facing frequently. If you keep opening X when working, block it. If you keep watching YouTube while writing, block it. If necessary, turn your phone into "Do not disturb" mode for a few hours to block anyone who might call you and only allow some phone calls to disturb you.
Use time-block: Allocate specific blocks of time for focused work and minimize multitasking to improve efficiency and concentration. I wrote about time blocking for managing anxiety and worry here.
Just complete it
Finish what you start: Push yourself to strive to complete tasks once you've started them to avoid the mental burden of unfinished business.
Set realistic deadlines: Establish deadlines for tasks to create a sense of urgency and accountability, which can help motivate you to follow through and complete them.
Utilize the Zeigarnik Effect to Your Advantage
Use milestones: Break larger projects into smaller milestones with deadlines to create a sense of progress and momentum. Your brain loves progress and momentum as it provides a sense of small achievement, making you want to return and continue the progress.
Leave it half-full: What do I mean by this? Our brain knows how hard it is to return to the square one task you left earlier to tackle some urgent call. But, rather than leave your task empty, leave it in the middle of progress. So, whenever you come back, you'll find it easier to resume work because you already know what to do.
Practice Self-Reflection:
Not every task has an equal workload or impact on your life. Not every task can roam free on your mind. Some you can focus on, and some you should be able to postpone or delegate to someone else. Do not let the Zeigarnik Effect take over your mind completely. Some tasks require a different way to approach them; some don't. Mindfully analyzing it will make you free and more effective in focusing on what matters most at any given time.
By incorporating these strategies into your workflow and mindset, you can harness the Zeigarnik effect to your advantage, enhance productivity, and cultivate a sense of achievement and fulfillment in your personal and professional pursuits.
As the last message to think about:
Zeigarnik's effect explains why we tend to remember what we should be doing but don't. These uncompleted tasks, a big goal or dream, can haunt us until the last day we put our feet on the earth. Over time, it will grow as a gigantic burden that weighs heavy that we may carry until the last breath that we take on a deathbed. The burden we wished we could have completed sooner.
To prevent this from happening, ask yourself this question: What is the Zeigarnik Effect that has been roaming around your mind that you wish you could have done but haven't until now?
It may be time for you to complete it before you have no energy left to do it while it roams freely on your mind, crawling and scratching your brain, reminding you to give it a check before you leave the planet.